The evidence has refuted the erroneous assumption that the Defendant Sauckel carried out the enlistment and mobilization of foreign workers on his own responsibility and through his own organization. It has been established that the supreme authorities in the occupied territories executed the laws regarding compulsory work as they had received them on Hitler’s orders. All these agencies had their own administrative system and guarded their departments against the intrusion of others.
A communication of the Rosenberg Ministry of the East to Koch, the Reich Commissioner for the Ukraine, dated 14 December 1942, Document 194-PS, Page 7, in which the Codefendant Rosenberg particularly refers to the right of sovereignty existing in questions of labor allocation, proves that this administrative system had not been infringed upon. These supreme authorities had their own labor offices which were organized in detail from each ministry down to the least important office. In reference I wish to cite Document 3012-PS, an ordinance of 6 February 1943, by the Supreme Command of the Army, dealing with compulsory work in the Eastern operational sector, and Document RF-15, an ordinance of 6 October 1942.
The Defendant Sauckel could merely place requests with these agencies for the number of workers he was ordered to bring to Germany, and give them the necessary instructions. These were his limitations, which he never exceeded. He respected the right of execution as opposed to the right of issuing instructions. For these tasks deputies were appointed for each territory who, in accordance with the ordinance of 30 September 1942, Exhibit USA-510, were directly subordinate to the Defendant Sauckel; they did not however belong to his agency, but to the territorial authorities. It was expressly confirmed by the witness Bail, called by the Codefendant Rosenberg, that this applied to the chief deputy in the East, State Counsellor Peuckert who belonged to the staff of the Eastern Ministry.
This State Counsellor Peuckert was at the same time consultant for the Economic Staff East for the rear army area which bordered on the territory under civil administration; here too he acted only in an accessory capacity as deputy of the Defendant Sauckel. This is proved by Document 3012-PS, which is a memorandum dealing with a conversation of 10 March 1943 concerning labor allocation, in which the position of Peuckert is noted on the attendance list. Through this arrangement with regard to Peuckert’s functions, created in the interest of the territorial authorities, all personal interference by the Defendant Sauckel was made impossible. In Document 018-PS, that is, in the letter to the Defendant Sauckel dated 21 December 1942, the Codefendant Rosenberg complains about the methods of labor mobilization in the East; but this must be considered as the complaint of a minister who is unable to assert himself against his subordinates and turns toward the presumable sources of the difficulties he is encountering.
It is true that these difficulties could have been removed immediately if the Defendant Sauckel had refrained from insisting on the fulfillment of his mission. But this fulfillment was the very task, specified in the decree of appointment as having to be effected under all circumstances.
The Defendant Sauckel had to fight against all obstacles due to weakness or departmental egotism, and had to see to it that local agencies did not out of a desire to let things ride fail to supply the required manpower, while other offices held it back out of selfish interests. “With all means” and “ruthlessly” are recurring expressions employed in combating these symptoms.
General Falkenhausen, the military commander in Belgium and northern France, during his hearing erroneously declared in Document RF-15 that the Defendant Sauckel forced him to mobilize labor and had carried this out by the aid of a special “organization” of his own. However, he had to admit that this was incorrect when the order signed by himself about the introduction of compulsory labor was put before him. This is also confirmed by the statements of the witnesses Timm and Stothfang.
In France workers were mobilized by the French administration. The superior German office was not the office of the Defendant Sauckel, but of the military commander in France, where Sauckel had only a deputy. The negotiations which the Defendant Sauckel conducted in Paris and which were the subject of the evidence lie outside of this activity; they are negotiations of a diplomatic nature between the German and French Governments in which Sauckel participated. They were held in the German Embassy.
Conditions and circumstances in the other territories were analogous. The recruiting commissions, which corresponded to the labor mobilization staffs in the rear army areas and the operational zones, were also by no means offices of the Defendant Sauckel, as the Codefendant Rosenberg assumes. These recruiting commissions were vaguely connected with the Defendant Sauckel only insofar as they were composed of experts who emanated from the German labor offices belonging to Sauckel’s department. They received directives only through their superior office, in order to guarantee uniform handling of all recruiting regulations. Regulation Number 4 in Document Number Sauckel-15 is very clear on this point. This advance appointment of the deputies as of 30 September 1942, which was already issued on 7 May 1942, provides for the sole responsibility of the military and civil authorities of the occupied territories. The deputies mentioned there as having been assigned the same functions, are the deputies with the German missions in friendly foreign countries.
This was misunderstood by the Prosecution, so that wrong conclusions were arrived at, to the disadvantage of the Defendant Sauckel, about the responsibility for recruiting and transport. The interpretation of the provision that all technical and administrative procedures of labor allocation were exclusively within the competence and responsibility of the Defendant Sauckel is also incorrect as far as occupied territory is concerned. This stipulation refers solely to the functions in the Reich and establishes the competence of the Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor, of the district labor offices, and the labor offices; this can be seen from Document 016-PS, last paragraph.